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Anthony Albanese had it right when he spoke to the Transport Workers Union (TWU) national council in Fremantle in May — the Labor Party, he said, should regard the Government's 2017 budget as an "overwhelming victory", a budget of "ideological surrender".
The Turnbull Government had "raised the white flag" to Labor's arguments by embracing a needs-based schools funding model, he said.
The problem was, Mr Albanese told the TWU, the Government's "rhetorical conversions" on schools funding and universal health care did not come with sufficient investment.
On politics and policy, Mr Albanese's response was spot on — claim the policy victory but insist the Government had not gone far enough on schools or Medicare.
But this was not the approach taken by Bill Shorten.
On schools funding, the Opposition Leader has lunged for pure politics.
So much so that we had the absurd spectacle of his deputy and education spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek declaring to 7.30's Leigh Sales on Wednesday night the Government's so-called Gonski 2.0 plan "isn't needs-based funding, it's not sector-blind and it's not fair".
Absurd, because her quick analysis defies almost every independent analysis of the Government's policy and ignores the inadequacies and inconsistencies hardboiled in the system that Labor bequeathed to the Coalition.
Ms Plibersek, one of Labor's best and brightest performers, has overcooked her response to Malcolm Turnbull's policy theft and at times it has shown.
She has pledged to restore "every dollar of the $22 billion that has been cut" from schools — a promise that should deeply worry her colleagues who might have better ideas about spending money.
Labor could win the politics on schools funding
Labor has a strong chance of winning the politics on schools funding, notwithstanding the fact the Government handed a model much closer to the one envisaged by Julia Gillard's own schools tsar, David Gonski.
Mr Shorten clearly thinks so, getting straight out of the blocks on Friday to visit a Catholic primary school that will "lose" $288,000 over the next decade compared to Labor's plan.
Brace yourselves — we are going to hear a lot more about the billions of missing dollars.
So Labor's $22 billion pledge warrants close scrutiny.
The Grattan Institute's schools funding expert, Pete Goss, breaks Labor's promise down into "the good, the bad and the ugly", roughly split into thirds.
It is only polite to start with the good.
Dr Goss says about $7 billion of the $22 billion could be sensibly spent by shortening the time it will take to get under-resourced schools closer to the Schools Resource Standard.
As it turns out, the crossbench senators forced the Government to spend an extra $5 billion to shorten the transition to full funding, from 10 years down to six.
Dr Goss says it would cost an extra $2 billion to further reduce that period to four years.
So that's the good, of which the Government has already spent the majority in clinching Senate support.
Dr Goss says the bad in Labor's $22 billion is about $7-8 billion in the above-the-odds spending Ms Gillard committed in order to win over states, territories and schools sectors for her version of the Gonski model.
This mostly comprises the sweetheart deals with non-government schools and the higher costs stemming from the Labor prime minister's "no-school-will-be-worse-off" pledge which meant rich schools would continue to be overfunded for decades to come.
A system that advantages some states over others
The ugly, according to Dr Goss, is the mechanism Labor established to get more money into underfunded schools.
Under Labor's plan, the Commonwealth would pay for 65 per cent of the gap to get all schools to needs-based funding.
But states do not fund their schools equally — meaning they have had a perverse incentive not to properly fund their schools.
For example, Victoria, under Labor's plan, would have more than 28 per cent of public schools funding paid by the Federal Government by 2027.
But WA, which spends a lot more money on its schools per student, would get just 13 per cent paid by the Commonwealth.
This is hardly fair or consistent.
And it might in part explain why WA's teachers' union has not quite been in tune with the vigorous campaign being waged by the Australian Education Union (AEU) who so mercilessly targeted the Greens for having the audacity to pursue improvements to the Coalition's needs-based funding proposal.
Does Labor intend to reinstate a system that advantages some states over others? Surely not.
Dr Goss estimates the ugly portion of Labor's $22 billion pledge costs $8 billion alone — money the states should be stumping up, not federal taxpayers.
Gonski win comes with political risk for Turnbull
In summary, Dr Goss reckons there is just $2 billion of "good" money left in Labor's $22 billion, after the Government's $18.6 billion plan was topped up by $5 billion.
But will this stop Labor campaigning hard? Not on your nelly. Mr Shorten and Ms Plibersek will only double down.
Mr Turnbull's win with Gonski 2.0, his biggest legislative achievement, comes with significant political risk.
Where Education Minister Simon Birmingham — the Government's best performer this year — perhaps erred is in underestimating the reaction from the Catholic schools sector.
Indeed, the Catholics are displaying the determination and ruthlessness of the AEU.
In a time of waning trust in our political system and our politicians, it is going to be extremely difficult for the Government to maintain control of the debate to come.
In a game of trust, there is no prize in guessing who will win between a teacher and a politician, no matter how hysterical or misleading the claims might get.
And in a subject matter so densely complicated as schools funding, getting the policy right does not mean the politics is any easier.
Topics: education, federal-government, federal-parliament, alp, australia
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